The present invention relates to the field of interactive voice response (IVR) systems and, more particularly, to using a complex events processor (CEP) to direct the handling of individual call sessions by an interactive voice response (IVR) system.
An interactive voice response (IVR) system is an efficient tool for directing callers to a desired person or information. The IVR system utilizes a variety of interaction files and/or applications that provide a caller with dialogs, such as spoken menu options and/or data, based upon input received from the caller. In conventional IVR systems, creating and managing the logical flow and/or content of the dialogs requires a specialist who understands the dialog encoding and software applications.
Thus, managing the dialogs of the IVR system requires additional processing by personnel who often do not understand the business relationships associated with the dialogs and/or their functions. This situation results in a disconnect between the presentation of dialogs to callers and the underlying business rules for the dialogs. A solution to this problem is for the dialog management of the IVR system to utilize a tool whose functionality is driven by user-defined business rules such as a complex events processor (CEP), as illustrated in FIG. 1 (Prior Art).
In system 100 of FIG. 1, the IVR system 110 handles calls from various callers 102, 104, and 106. During the IVR system's 110 interactions with the callers 102, 104, and 106, situations are triggered that cause the IVR system 110 to send the CEP 125 one or more event data messages 120. The situations that trigger the IVR system 110 to generate event data messages 120 are contained within the user-defined business rules 135 stored in a data store 130 accessible by the CEP 125.
The IVR system 110 sends the event data messages 120 to the CEP 125 in an event stream 115. The CEP 125 then uses the user-defined business rules 135 to analyze the contents of the event data messages 120. Based on this analysis, the CEP 125 can issue one or more action messages 140 to the IVR system 110 to alter the operation of the IVR system 110.
System 100 provides the capability to change how the IVR system 100 functions, but only in a broad sense. That is, the action messages 140 issued by the CEP 125 modify how the IVR system 110 functions for all callers 102, 104, and 106. Such sweeping changes do not allow for the IVR system's 110 interaction with a specific caller 102, 104, or 106 to be independently modified. Thus, the conventional implementation illustrated by system 100 fulfills the need for providing modification of IVR system 110 operation based on business rules 135, but lacks the ability to narrow the focus of the modifications to individual callers 102, 104, and 106.